Ash is a fast, maneuverable Warframe that possesses a high degree of survivability in the field. Fleet movement complements deadly tools of assassination, making Ash a perfect balance between killing potency and stealth.

Acquisition

Component blueprints drop from Manics. Manics have a 33.33% chance to drop a component blueprint, which has a 38.72% chance to be the Chassis, 38.72% to be the Neuroptics, and 22.56% to be the Systems. There is an expected 17-18 Manic kills to obtain each component at least once and 146±35 to be nearly guaranteed each component at least once.

Warframe Guides

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Trivia

As seen from concept art, Ash was initially slated to be a female Warframe.

Ash's special abilities are names of tools and weapons that would commonly be used by a ninja.

Ash, like some of Hydroid's powers, has a unique perk that allows his Blade Storm ability to completely bypass enemy armor due to the attacks dealing Finishing damage; the kind of damage used when players perform finishing attacks on unaware/blinded/sleeping enemies.

Ash was the first Warframe that had innate physical weapons associated with his frame, in this case his hidden blades he uses in his Blade Storm ability. The second frame with this innate physical weapon was Mesa and her Regulator pistols she uses in her Peacemaker ability.

Ash Prime is the primed variant of the Ash Warframe featuring more powerful stats, possessing a higher shield capacity, armor and sprint speed, as well as an additional polarity.

On May 24th, 2017, it was announced that Ash Prime would enter the Prime Vault and be retired from the reward tables on May 30th, 2017. Any preexisting components or fully-built frames will remain as is.

Notes

As a prime Warframe, Ash Prime possesses a special passive ability where contact with an Orokin VoidDeath Orb will make them release an energy pulse that grants 250Energy to all nearby allies. This effect can only occur once per Death Orb and can occur even if the Death Orb has been previously destroyed.

Ash Prime has 85 more base Armor (150 compared to 65), 25 more base Shields (125 compared to 100 at Rank 0, 375 compared to 300 at Rank 30), and 0.05 more Sprint Speed (1.20 compared to 1.15) compared to the standard Ash.

This makes Ash Prime the first primed frame to have three enhanced stats over its normal version.

Trivia

Ash Prime's helmet could be loosely based on the traditional Kabuto Samurai helmet and shows certain aspects of other Samurai Helmets like the oversized chin guard.

Ash Prime's Arsenal image shows him holding the Vectis Prime as a lefty. Although this may be unintentional, it could hint to Ash Prime being ambidextrous, hence why he is equally efficient with both arm blades.

Can be cast in rapid succession and since the slash proc ignores armor and can be stacked, this can bypass the high scaled armor of Grineer units.

The homing aspect of Shuriken can be used to seek out any hidden units that might be nearby. By casting the ability in the general direction of hidden enemies, the shuriken will home in on the nearest one.

Maximization is a form of specialization: mods may be blended to result in values that vary between the top-end limits listed here. Click any maximized link to learn how to build it.

Can be used to teleport to enemies, allies, hostages, Cryopods, Excavators, and destructible objects.

If the target is an enemy, it will be staggered and left vulnerable to a Finisher attack. If the enemy cannot be attacked with a Finisher (either due to positioning or the enemy type), it will be susceptible to Stealth Damage Multipliers from melee attacks for the duration of the stagger. As with Smoke Screen, coming into physical contact with the enemy while attacking will temporarily remove the damage bonus.

Requires direct line of sight to a small part of the target.

Can be used in the air.

Note that using Teleport on Wardens will alert them to your presence and remove the massive stealth attack bonus received from normal stealth attacks.

Fatal Teleport is a Warframe Augment Mod for Ash's Teleport that immediately performs a melee finisher upon teleporting to the target, with an additional damage multiplier. Additionally, if the finisher kills its target, 50% of Teleport's energy cost is refunded.

Ash instantly enters a state of intense focus as he searches for targets to assassinate, emitting black smoke and seeing the environment in monochrome. During targeting mode, enemies within 50 meters that are seen near the aiming reticle become tagged with a Death Mark that appears above them, while all marked targets are highlighted in red. Staring at enemies longer will add up to 2 additional marks, signifying more than one potential attack. Activating the ability again (default 4 ) will spawn 2 Shadow Clones that follow Ash's assault as he teleports and attacks all marked enemies. Each attack (including clone attacks) consumes one mark and inflicts 750 / 1000 / 1500 / 2000Finisher damage with a 100% Bleed chance.

Ash will attempt to attack each marked target once. After a marked target has been attacked by Ash, his Shadow Clones can then attack the target to consume any remaining marks on the target provided the target is still alive.

Applying a mark during targeting mode will consume 15 energy. If Ash is invisible by any means (e.g. using Smoke Screen) when the mark is applied, then only 10 energy is consumed. Per mark energy costs are affected by Ability Efficiency.

If a marked target is killed before all marks on the target are consumed, then the energy for each unused mark will be refunded. The amount refunded is equivalent to the amount initially used to apply the mark.

Blade Storm can be used to start long Melee Combo chains to gain additional bonus melee damage.

Blade Storm can also be empowered by performing Melee Combo chains before casting, as the ability's damage benefits greatly from the bonus melee damage multiplier.

Considering Blade Storm has a 100% chance to proc Bleed, dealing 35% of the base damage 7 times in 6 seconds, the ability actually does 2000 + ((2000×0.35)×7) = 6,900 damage in 6 seconds, making it one of the most powerful abilities in the game if modded and used accordingly.

If used during sliding, Blade Storm seems to use a shorter version of finishing animations, which reduces total animation time.

Since Blade Storm is a Non-channeling ability that utilize the melee combo counter, the skill will benefit greatly from the effects of both Body Count and Drifting Contact. Instead of having a 3 second delay before the combo counter disappear, the delay will be 3+12+10=25 seconds.

Maximization is a form of specialization: mods may be blended to result in values that vary between the top-end limits listed here. Click any maximized link to learn how to build it.

Increases cost per mark to 23.25 energy and 15.5 energy while invisible.

On certain unspecific occasions Ash will become invulnerable after using Blade Storm. It should also be noted that Blade Storm can cause lag commonly.

Very rarely, after using Blade Storm, Ash will float and become invincible. He is unable to jump or fall down, use melee weapons (or primaries/secondaries in some cases), or use Blade Storm again. Pressing E will teleport to a random enemy and perform a purely aesthetic Blade Storm attack which does no damage. This appears to occur when Blade Storm's initial target is killed before Blade Storm begins.

On some occasions (most likely related to latency), Ash will remain vulnerable whilst being unable to exit this bugged state without getting killed (as in, actually dying and using a revive charge, as revival by a teammate will not end this glitch).

This may occur when the initial target for Blade Storm is killed (by another player/procs) during the teleporting animation, causing Ash to teleport to his casting location, and initiate this bug.

To deactivate the bug, Ash can prompt a "falling out of level" event by power wall climbing to the sky if there is a wall in the map that allows him to. This will respawn Ash to a random location on the ground and deactivate the bug.

Very Rarely, when Ash finishes using Blade Storm he will appear at the location where he used it with 0 Health, unable to move, unable to use weapons, and unable to be damaged by enemies. Any on screen prompts that occur, such as Defense and Interception wave prompts, will not be presented to Ash in this state. Ash cannot be revived as he isn't considered down despite the fact that he has 0 health. The only way to fix this bug is to wait for the mission to end or leave the mission.

If wielding a melee weapon when cast, Blade Storm will occasionally perform Finisher attacks on enemies. This does not occur if the player is hosting.

Occasionally, Ash will fall out of the map after using Blade Storm, where he will either teleport back to the original casting position or die.

If Blade Storm is cast and Ash's holograms seek out a Mind Controlled target, they will attack the target indefinitely until either the Mind Controlled target dies or its duration expires.

Attempting to use Blade Storm against another player when fighting in the Dojo will cause Ash to become invincible and hover in the air. In this state, Ash can only move and use firearms.

When Ash has no melee weapon equipped, it is possible in some cases for Ash to attain an unmodded Skana after using Bladestorm. This Skana is not listed in the end of mission screen, nor in the in-game gear list, and is lost upon dying or completion of mission.

Shuriken can be used to break the glass on Corpus missions, activating a lockdown. Trapped enemies inside the room are slowly damaged or even killed if they are weak enough.

Shuriken will often try to seek enemies that you've run past, making it miss both the enemy you ran past and the target you were trying to hit.

Blade Storm can be activated while zooming in with a ranged weapon. This can be used to more precisely pick targets.

You are invincible while using Blade Storm. This can be used to give time to regenerate your shields.

Blade Storm can be used to pick up items that are very far away or in dangerous situations (an item surrounded by 5 enemies for example). This generally requires a sentinel's Vacuum skill for maximum effectiveness. Simply target an enemy near something you want to pick up and activate the ability. Since you return to your starting point you will return to your "safe spot" but will have picked up health orbs, energy orbs, and even mods.

Ash is a poor choice in Defense missions unless using a heavy hitting or heavy crit chance melee weapon, and even then consider using Ash for missions other than defense. He lacks a quick, high damage AoE ability that can decimate groups nearly instantaneously such as Volt's Discharge, Rhino's Stomp, or Excalibur's Radial Javelin. Ash's only AoE, Blade Storm, is potentially time consuming and the cryopod/artifact could be destroyed before Blade Storm kills everyone in the area.

However, using Smoke Screen and then attacking with a melee weapon(preferably one that can strike multiple targets) can clear out a group faster than Blade Storm, if base damage is high enough, due to the bonus stealth damage.

In Update 13.5, Ash's Blade Storm was buffed to increase its viability in AoE crowd-clearing. Blade Storm now spawns 2 holographic clones of Ash to assist in the execution of Blade Storm and they inflict Blade Storm's full damage. This allows Ash to clear the maximum 18 marked targets 3 times faster, making Blade Storm a viable method of quickly clearing out enemies. Note that other abilities can kill enemies faster than Blade Storm, even with the clones.

Smoke Screen does not prevent damage from Orokin Lasers or AoE damage such as poison clouds and explosions.